Another lesson with weekly credit spreads

[luxmon 233]

I check their performance periodically for comedy relief, and "5 percent per week" just became -1.3% per week for 2014.  Last week they let a $5-wide credit spread they sold for $0.25 expire completely in the money, wiping out a lot of hard work lol:

 

http://www.5percentperweek.com/customer/customerMain.php?section=tradePage&step=viewClosedTrades

 

This is a scary way to trade.

[dbh21 62]

That's pretty disastrous. Everyone was making money on condors in 2010-2012 hand over fist. Hard not to. 2013/14 seems to be a shake out year with no one left.

 

Aren't these the same guys as the 10%/mo? That has done reasonably well. Although I don't follow any newsletters anymore.

[Kim 8,043]

Those guys "manage" to produce at least few big losses pretty much every year:

 

2010: -75%

2011: -95%, -30%, -37%

2012: -22%, -20%, -60%

2013: -35%, -25%, -26%, -35%

2014: -34%, -64%, -83%, -100%

 

Yes, same guys as 10ppm. They lost 31% and 38% in 2008, 70% in 2010, and their performance reporting is very questionable.

[PaulCao 51]

That's pretty disastrous. Everyone was making money on condors in 2010-2012 hand over fist. Hard not to. 2013/14 seems to be a shake out year with no one left.

 

Aren't these the same guys as the 10%/mo? That has done reasonably well. Although I don't follow any newsletters anymore.

 

Hi, 

 

I'm really curious about the way VIX is going to go in 2015. If VIX can go up with the Fed really tapering instead of talking about it to 16-20 on a regular basis, I think iron condors can be a good way to trade again. 

 

The problem with these guys who trade weekly condors IMHO is: 

1) They don't seem to buy hedges when SPX bumps up to their wings.  

2) They trade weeklies with the intent of holding to expiration, where the spread is extremely sensitive to delta and credit is low so your wings are narrow to start with anyways. So counting down the days and praying that the market doesn't fluctuate; not easy living in my opinion. 

 

I think the approach of buying condors/calendars with 30 days of expiration with the intent of closing absolutely one week prior to expiration is better; and with hedging to cut your delta by 75% when you're close to your wings. You end up with less "dramatic" winners than your weekly newsletter results, but I personally sleep better and think your win/loss ratio ends up better in the long run. 

 

Of course, everytime I look back on how much "money" left on the table on a previous spread if I held it one more week to expiration, I remind myself the reverse scenario of also times when I could have lost that much and much much more had I done the same thing. Or at least that's how I rationalize how no money was left on the table. 

 

Best,

PC

[Kim 8,043]

Those who trade ICs and hold to expiration simply don't understand the huge gamma risk. It doesn't mean that this cannot work in the long term. It just means that those are very risky trades, that deserve only very small allocation. But this is not what they communicate to their members. Here are some of the gems found on this site:

• Losses are cut soon, and managed properly.
• we use low risk positions that produce low returns (~5%).

Those trades are NOT low risk. Far from it. And if the market gaps 1-2 days to expiration, you just cannot manage the losses due to high negative gamma. And here is where the main problem is: those claims are very misleading.

[luxmon 233]

PC hit the nail on the head with problem #2 he mentioned.  They have no (or random) risk management and always content with being in the market.  This is bound to fail when picking up nickels in front of the proverbial steam roller and these market corrections happen.

 

For the 2055/2060 call spread they sold the day of the fed meeting last week (2 days before expiration), that was a pure spec play IMO, not an income trade.  They would have been much better off with an OTM butterfly with better risk/reward.  It seems their service can't decide what it wants to be when it grows up.